‘Love at Work’ was an interesting workshop organised through the ‘North East Together’ network for social change leadership. Whilst I found out about this through my ‘work’ connections (i.e. the work I actually get paid to do 😉), I went along wearing my ‘Unitarian Administrator’ hat. I was curious to see how two such concepts could sit alongside each other, and thought there was an obvious spiritual connection.

The workshop leaders – Rob, Duncan and Julie – created a shared space at One Strawberry Lane for people to explore what love means, including a look at the author bell hooks’ ideas of ‘Ingredients of Love’. This was a surprisingly powerful and moving journey of self-exploration; surprising because workshops with ‘work’ in the title don’t usually involve a journey of such emotional depth.

This part of the workshop was solo; the next part was a group exercise in which we discussed how this can apply to the world of work. Again, we reached surprising emotional depths during this exercise! I wouldn’t expect a ‘work workshop’ to get so personal, but I feel for the voluntary and community sector, it does work. Many of us do what we do not for money, but for other reasons.

Could this be used in a spiritual / Unitarian setting, perhaps adapted to explore notions of ‘love’ more broadly in all aspects of our lives? Yes, but with a big caveat. Many of us shared very personal experiences, and we all noted that if you do what you do for the love of what you do, that can leave you open to being exploited. The workshop organisers created a supportive space, but I feel anything like this really does need the amount of work they put in to do this, including ground rules, somewhere to go if someone needs ‘time out’ and support available to talk. It should not be done lightly, but with thought.

That said, I do feel that it was one of the more intense learning experiences I’ve had, either professionally or as a Unitarian, and my thanks to the organisers (and the excellent coffee shop staff at One Strawberry Lane, who did an impromptu chorus of ‘Where’s The Sunshine?’ as we discussed the weather whilst the coffee was brewing!) for creating a very unusual and meaningful morning.